206 NOTES ON WILD PLANTS. 
is an extraordinary mixture of soils in this 
parish. 
The cowslip, as I have said, grows in profusion 
in the park and other pastures; in the shrub 
wood, the ground in spring is enamelled with 
primroses and wood anemones, which a litle 
later are succeeded by an almost equal profusion 
of the wild hyacinth or blue-bell; but in the rest — 
of the parish, 1 think, the primrose 16 qn@E 
abundant. The oxlip (primula elatior), grew 
formerly in the low and damp parts of the park 
before it was drained, and, as I before mentioned, 
in the ox pasture. I doubt whether it is now 
to be found anywhere in this parish; but at 
Cockfield, about seven miles south-east of Bury, 
there is a wood in which the ground is as thickly 
clothed with oxlips as in our Shrub it is with 
primroses. Professor Churchill Babington tells 
me that scarcely a primrose is to be seen in the 
parish of Cockfield. This difference in the dis- 
tribution of the two may be partly owing to soil; 
for that of our Shrub is light, whereas Bull’s 
Wood at Cockfield is on a stiff and heavy clay. 
Barton has hardly any ferns : I do not know with 
certainty of any which are now to be found wild 
within the limits of the parish, except the two 
commonest of all, the male shield-fern (aspidium 
felix-mas), and the common brake ( pleris aquilina). 
I have formerly found also the prickly shield-fern 
(aspidium aculeatum), the common polypody, and 
the hart’s tongue; but I believe they have been 
